


Brotherly Advice

by RogueTranslator



Series: Schism [2]
Category: Hollyoaks
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Friendship, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, McDean, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-16 09:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21505861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueTranslator/pseuds/RogueTranslator
Summary: Craig talks to Jake about what's been going on between him and John Paul, but his brother isn't as understanding as he'd hoped.This takes place on 12 February 2007, after Craig has tried apologising to John Paul for bashing him. In an episode a few days before, Jake had said he'd pay Craig a visit to talk about what he's going through, but we never see that conversation. I figured I'd write it.This is a sequel to "Karma's a McQueen."
Relationships: Craig Dean/John Paul McQueen
Series: Schism [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1550134
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Brotherly Advice

Craig stirred at the knock at his door. He blinked at the idle phone in his hand, his eyes adjusting to the evening gloom, then rolled over and sat up.

“Yeah?” he croaked.

Jake cracked the door and peeked in. “Oh, sorry mate. Mum told me to come through. I didn’t know you were getting an early night.”

“No, no.” Craig rubbed his face and swung his feet to the floor. “I think I just put my head down while revising. I’m glad you woke me up, actually. Otherwise I might have gone without tea.”

Jake closed the door behind him and looked around the room. “You alright? You seem a little shaken up.”

“Nah, it’s just because you woke me up, isn’t it?” Craig put his hands on his knees and stared down at the shadows in the corner.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” Jake licked his lips and cracked his knuckles.

“Actually,” Craig said, rubbing his neck. “I’ve had a mad couple of days.”

“It’s a bit more than that, isn’t it?”

Craig grimaced, his muscles tensing. “What do you mean?”

“Well, just that it’s more like the past week, isn’t it? Since the dance at school?”

“Oh.” Craig took a deep breath and nodded. “That’s what you meant.”

“Well, yeah.” Jake leaned against Craig’s desk and looked down at him. “And I’m sorry for not dropping by sooner; it’s just—I’ve got a lot on as well, and I figured you had Mum and Jack and Steph to talk to.”

Craig shrugged. “Yeah, well, you haven’t been in the running for any ‘Brother of the Year’ awards for a good while now, have you?”

“Hey!” Jake pushed himself off Craig’s desk and scowled. “Why have a go at me? I’m here now, aren’t I? And it’s not like my life’s all rainbows and sunshine either, as it happens.”

“Yeah.” Craig reached up to his lamp and exhaled as watery fluorescent light filled his bedroom. “Sorry, my head’s just all over the place.”

Jake cleared his throat. “Because of John Paul?”

“John Paul,” Craig repeated. He glanced at the black screen of his phone.

“Yeah.” Jake pulled out Craig’s desk chair and sat down. “Look, I’ve heard a few things, but if you feel like talking about it—setting the record straight, if you get my meaning—I don’t mind hearing it from the horse’s mouth.”

Craig looked at him apprehensively. “What have you heard?”

“Er, that his bird caught the two of you in a clinch at that dance off last week, for starters. It was fun hearing that from Nancy over breakfast the next day, I’ll tell you that much.”

“Trust Nancy to spread gossip around the first chance she gets,” Craig muttered.

“Well, I’m your brother, aren’t I? It’s not like she’s running from house to house shooting her mouth off.”

“And you didn’t think to ask me what really happened?”

“Mate, why do you think I’m here right now? It’s definitely not for the pleasure of your company, I’ll tell you that.”

Craig sighed and sat back against the wall, crossing his legs beneath him. “Me and John Paul—we’d just gotten so close. I’d never had a friend like that.”

“What?” Jake’s forehead pinched in with revulsion. “You’re not seriously—if you’re about to come out to me right now, I don’t think I want to hear it.”

“I’m not coming out to you.” Craig rolled his eyes. “Idiot.”

“Whew.” Jake wiped the back of his hand over his brow. “For a moment there, I thought you were working up to some soppy reveal that you’re a big fairy.”

“You’re real evolved, Jake.”

“I hope I’m not, actually, if that’s the politically correct term for ‘letting poofters try it on with me.’”

“I didn’t—will you just shut up and let me finish?”

Jake held up his hands. “Okay.”

“Have you ever had a mate who—who you get on with like you’ve known each other all your lives? Who you just have such a laugh with that you end up spending all your time together?”

“I’ve had mates,” Jake said reluctantly.

“Okay, then suppose that mate fancies you—”

Jake burst out laughing and stared up at the ceiling.

“—what would you do? Wouldn’t you want to keep them as a mate? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with fancying someone, is there?”

“Well, if the mate were a girl, yeah, I’d be chuffed to stay mates. Though it’d probably turn into more than that if she told me she fancied me.”

Jake paused and pursed his lips, but Craig stayed silent and waited for him to continue.

“If it were a bloke—look, I’m being honest mate, I’d have to blank him.”

“What? So you’d get rid of a best mate just like that?”

Jake snorted. “That’s if he’s lucky. I might have to be a little harsher to make sure he doesn’t get the wrong idea.”

“Harsher—what do you mean, harsher?”

“Well, you know just as well as I do.” Jake quirked an eyebrow. “That’s what you had to do with John Paul, isn’t it? He wasn’t taking no for an answer, so you had to make sure he got the message. He didn’t really give you a choice.”

Craig shook his head. “No, that’s not what happened. That’s not what happened at all.”

“Go on then,” Jake said, sitting back in the chair. “Enlighten me.”

“John Paul told me he fancied me a while back,” Craig said, averting his eyes. “But I decided I wanted to keep him as a mate. He said he was cool with it.”

“Hang on a minute. Hasn’t he been with that Hannah bird all this time?”

Craig nodded. “Off and on. But since then, yeah.”

“And you didn’t think she deserved to know that her bloke prefers other boys?”

“It wasn’t for me to say!” Craig protested.

Jake dragged his hands down his face and chuckled. “This is mental, this.”

“Then, at the dance off, we went off and got really drunk. Just the two of us.”

“Why’d you let yourself be alone with him?”

Craig threw up his hands. “Because he’s a mate?”

“You should’ve known he’d try it on.” Jake leapt up and began pacing around the room. “You should’ve known he’d take advantage.”

“He didn’t ‘take advantage.’ Will you just stop interrupting me?”

“I’m sorry mate, but I’m just getting anxious about what you’ve gotten yourself into here. You should’ve come to me much sooner.”

Craig snorted. “Why, so you could’ve gone round to his and warned him off?”

“Yeah, and the rest.” Jake glared at him. “It’s not a joke, Craig.”

“Anyway,” Craig continued, rolling his eyes. “It was just the two of us drinking, messing about—”

“’Messing about,’ what does that mean? Messing about how?”

“Talking?”

“Talking.”

“Yes,” Craig hissed. “It’s a thing you do with mates. You should try it sometime.”

Jake stopped pacing at the window and looked out at the pond. “And then?”

“Then—” Craig shrugged. “He leaned in and kissed me, didn’t he.”

Jake closed his eyes and shook his head.

“That’s when Hannah walked in and saw us.”

Jake stared down at the carpet. “Did you—”

“No.”

“You didn’t kiss him back at all?”

Craig hesitated for a split-second. “No. Of course not.”

“So, what happened after that?”

“Well, Hannah only went and told the whole sixth form. So, everyone started thinking I was gay.”

“Imagine that. Tends to happen when you go around kissing boys.”

“I didn’t—” Craig shot Jake an ireful glance. “It only got worse when John Paul decided to come out to everyone at school.”

“Some mate,” Jake said bitterly.

“Yeah,” Craig agreed, then glanced down at his mobile. “No, I mean, that’s up to him. The whole thing was doing his head in as well.”

“Just—” Jake spun around to face the bed and balled his hands into fists. “Listen to yourself, will you? Even now, you’re making excuses for him. Anyone would think you fancy him back!”

“He’s a mate,” Craig mumbled.

“Why’d you batter him, then?”

“That was—we were just going hard at it on the pitch, and we fought over a foul. My head was done in and I just…I don’t know, snapped.”

“And that’s all there was to it?”

“Well, the past few days definitely didn’t help anything,” Craig said defensively.

Jake exhaled and walked back to the desk chair.

“What?”

“Well, I don’t really know what to say after all that.” Jake crossed his arms and watched Craig. “Have you told mum all this?”

“Some of it.”

“And what’s she said?”

“Not much. I’ve mostly been keeping to my room, though. You know how she overreacts to things.”

“Yeah, well for once, I might not blame her.”

Craig leaned across his bed and picked up his mobile.

“Oh, am I boring you?”

“No.” Craig opened his phone: no new messages. “If you must know, I just wanted to see if John Paul had texted.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Or Sarah.”

“Oh, I’m glad you remembered her in all this!”

Craig placed his phone on the corner of his desk and looked up at Jake. “What’s your problem now?”

“Look, Craig.” Jake edged the chair forward so he was sitting next to the bed. “I know what I’m about to say is going to sound obvious, but I think you’ve really made a pig’s ear out of everything.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I mean, you really didn’t suss that John Paul was—you know—before he told you?”

“Nah.” Craig looked around at the posters on his walls. “He had a girlfriend, didn’t he? And he’s not camp. He likes lad stuff—”

Jake snorted. “You got that right. Why do you think he wanted to be your mate anyway?”

“Because we get on?”

“Craig, he probably fancied you from the start. You know, this is what they do: get close to you, pretend to be your mate, just so they can try their luck once you’ve let your guard down. It’s disgusting.”

“Jake—John Paul’s not like that. He made a mistake and he feels really bad about it. And he wasn’t ‘pretending to be my mate.’”

“Will you just stop defending him?”

Craig rolled his eyes and picked up his phone again. “I never knew you hated gays so much, anyway.”

“Oh, here we go,” Jake said, nodding to Craig’s phone. “Checking to see if your boyfriend’s sent you a text yet?”

“Shut up.” Craig glared at him. “I don’t even know why I told you all this now. I should’ve known you wouldn’t understand.”

“Craig.” Jake took a breath, then clasped his hands together and leaned forward. “I want you to tell me the truth. Are you—”

“I’m straight,” Craig said, through gritted teeth.

“You’re sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“Then why are you sticking up for John Paul? Why keep defending him? Why are you checking your mobile for texts from him, when you should just be blanking his calls?”

Craig dropped his head back to the wall with a dull thud. “I don’t know.”

“Are you—”

“Am I what?”

“Confused, then? I mean, you’ve always been desperate for attention.”

“Yeah, and I was getting it? From my girlfriend?”

Jake nodded, seemingly satisfied. “So, you think she’ll take you back?”

“I don’t know,” Craig repeated.

Both of them stared off at the dark corners of the room for a while. Craig turned his mobile over and over in his right hand and fisted his sheets with his left.

“What about John Paul?” Jake finally said. “You’re not going to carry on being mates with him, are you?”

“Don’t think so.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “You don’t think so?”

“I texted him an apology the other day.” Craig averted his eyes as Jake crossed his arms again. “No response. I tried talking to him this afternoon, after school, but he knocked me back.”

“He should be apologising to you!”

Craig pressed his lips together. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I tried explaining, and he didn’t want to hear it. I don’t think we’re mates anymore.”

“Yeah, well he’s done you a favour if you ask me.” Jake canted his head towards the cone of light from Craig’s lamp, his eyes pensive for the first time since they’d started talking. “Craig, you don’t know what’s good for you. Forget about John Paul, alright? Focus on Sarah and your exams.”

“Yeah.” Craig smirked at him. “I don’t want to end up like you, do I?”

Jake smiled, dropped his arms. “Look, mate, I really should be getting back. I’ve left Charlie with Nancy all this time and she’ll be needing to revise.”

“That’s alright. I was just about getting sick of you, anyway.”

Jake grinned again and stood up. “You’re telling me.”

“Jake,” Craig called, once Jake had opened his door. “Thanks for coming by.”

Jake shrugged.

“Even if you’re a blockhead—”

“Oi.”

“—It helps to talk to someone.”

Jake leaned his hand into the doorframe and glanced back at Craig. “You’re my brother, aren’t you.”

Craig nodded; Jake walked down the hallway without saying anything more. After he heard the click of the front door, Craig stood up and walked out of his room, pulling on his dressing gown along the way.

On the kitchen table lay a plate of spaghetti with clingfilm over it. Craig pulled out a chair and slumped into it, then placed his hand over the plastic, checking for warmth. The floor underneath him vibrated with the music and laughter of the pub below; in the stillness of the flat the sound of other people seemed muted and strained, as if everything could fall quiet at any moment.

He pulled out his phone and looked at it in the pale beam of the streetlamp outside. Jake’s words clattered around in his head: _Forget about John Paul, alright?_

Craig sniffed and shook his head, willing away the dry sting in his nose and eyes. He lifted the clingfilm from the plate, picked up his fork, and started eating the cold pasta with voracity.


End file.
